Latin America "continent of hope", Benedict believes

Concluding his tour of Brazil, Pope Benedict has described South
America as a "continent of hope" while denouncing drug dealers and
warning against drug use and sexual infidelity.

An
estimated 150,000 pilgrims greeted the pope as he arrived outside the
basilica at Aparecida, south-west of Sao Paulo, the BBC reports.

The
Pope was then due to open a major conference of Latin American bishops,
which will discuss ways to extend the Church's reach in Latin America.

Aparecida is home to Our Lady of Aparecida - a statue of a black Virgin Mary and the patron saint of Brazil.

In
his final engagement, the pope speaking outside the Basilica of Our
Lady, one of the world's largest cathedrals, said the Church would grow
by attracting new members, not by proselytising to reluctant audiences.

"This is the faith that has made [Latin] America the 'continent of hope'", he said.

"Not a political ideology, not a social movement, not an economic system."

Despite
the Pope's optimistic message, reports said the size of the crowds was
smaller than the 500,000 that organisers had expected.

The issue
of attracting or keeping members will be high on the agenda at the
two-week bishops' conference, which will bring together 169 bishops
from across Latin America.

The rise of evangelical churches and
the Vatican's traditional conservative stance on social issues are
among the key obstacles to reviving the attraction of the Church in
Latin America, correspondents say.

"We need to find ways to
evangelise more effectively so that people become true Catholics,"
Bishop Jose Antonio Tosi Marques from the Brazilian city of Fortaleza
told reporters.

Bishop Erwin Krautler from the Amazon state of
Para said the Church must do more to help the poor. "We often forget
that the poor and landless have a right to a dignified life."

Krautler
was a friend of Dorothy Stang, a US nun murdered in Para in 2005 by
ranchers opposed to her work with landless peasants in the Amazon.

He
defended Liberation Theology, a movement in which priests and lay
people allied themselves with the poor against military dictatorships
in the 1970s and 1980s. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the current pope
led a Vatican crackdown on the movement.

"The right to
liberation is in the Bible. Liberation Theology is a purely Latin
American aspect of the church that deserves respect," Krautler said.

Earlier,
several hundred thousand people attended an open-air mass in Sao Paulo
on Friday to see the Pope canonise Brazil's first saint, Franciscan
monk Friar Galvao.

And in a visit to a drug and substance
abuse centre, the Fazenda da Esperanca (Hope Farm), in Guaratingueta,
about 30 km from Aparecida, Pope Benedict urged young people who kicked
the habit to carry the torch of hope that faith offers to people of
their age and to society.

God shall call those who deal in drugs
to account because "human dignity cannot be trampled upon in this way",
the pope said according to an AsiaNews report.

"The harm
done will receive the same reproach that Jesus reserved for those who
gave scandal to the 'little ones', God's favourites", the pope said.

"I
urge drug-dealers to reflect on the grave harm they are inflicting on
countless young people and adults from every walk of life. God will
call you to account for your deeds," he added.

"We see the high
death rate among young people, the threat of violence, the deplorable
proliferation of drugs which strike at the deepest roots of youth
today. For these reasons, we hear talk of a 'lost youth,'" the pope
also said in his earlier address to young people in Sao Paulo.

"My
appeal to you today, young people present at this gathering, is this:
Do not waste your youth. Do not seek to escape from it. Live it
intensely. Consecrate it to the high ideals of faith and human
solidarity," he said.